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April 18, 2017 - The Joe Rogan Experience
01:33:07
Joe Rogan Experience #947 - Ron Miscavige
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joe rogan
25:30
r
ron miscavige
01:06:40
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Speaker Time Text
joe rogan
Four, three, two, one.
And we're live.
What's up, Ron?
How are you?
ron miscavige
I'm doing okay.
joe rogan
You're doing all right?
ron miscavige
Yeah.
joe rogan
I'm doing good, man.
ron miscavige
Quick start.
I came in here ten seconds ago.
We're on the air, you know?
joe rogan
I know.
Well, I wanted it to be that way.
It's more natural.
Sometimes, like, some of the best stuff gets said off mic, so we figured now how to do it where people get in, and pretty much as soon as we sit down, we start talking.
ron miscavige
No complaints.
joe rogan
So, you contacted us after the Leah Remini interview.
ron miscavige
Right.
joe rogan
And you wanted to get on, and you have this book that you wrote.
It's called Ruthless...
What's the correct pronunciation?
It's Cabbage?
Ms. Cabbage?
ron miscavige
No, Ms. Cabbage.
joe rogan
Ms. Cabbage.
ron miscavige
Yeah, the actual name of the book is Ruthless, Scientology, My Son David Miscavige and Me.
Right.
joe rogan
Now, let me just say this before we get started, because Scientology, this is the first time I've ever been contacted...
They sent an email to my publicist and they have a rebuttal to what you wrote and their rebuttal is at a website ronmiscavagebook.com and they want people to know about their website which is Scientology.org and they have a statement.
This is their statement.
Ron Miscavige is seeking to make money on the name of his famous son David Miscavige.
Oh, David Miscavige has taken care of his father throughout his life, both financially and by helping him in even the most dire circumstances.
Ron Miscavige was nowhere around when David Miscavige ascended to the leadership of the Church of Scientology, mentioned by and working directly with the religion's founder, L. Ron Hubbard, and entrusted by him with the future of the Church.
Any father exploiting his son in this manner is a sad exercise of betrayal.
Mr. David Miscavige's far-reaching vision and unrelenting dedication has brought the Church of Scientology to where it is today, guaranteeing its future for generations to come.
Scientologists worldwide love and respect Mr. Miscavige for his tireless work on behalf of their religion.
So that's...
That's their statement.
That's what they wanted to say.
And I feel like it's only fair.
You know, we had Leah Remini on, and we have you on, and I've had Louis Theroux on.
ron miscavige
Right.
joe rogan
And, look, I feel like, I don't know the story, but any time a father is so disconnected from his son, they have to write a book about him.
It's a sad time.
Do you feel like that?
ron miscavige
No.
joe rogan
You don't feel sad at all?
ron miscavige
I don't feel that...
I just woke up one day and said, I'd like to write a book about Scientology.
And if I can give you a short encapsulated statement, I think we could set a nice groundwork for the whole interview.
You mind if I do that?
joe rogan
Sure.
ron miscavige
Okay.
I was a Scientologist for 42 years.
joe rogan
Were you raised in it?
ron miscavige
No.
I got my family in, in 1970. But I was in the church for 42 years.
The last 26 and a half years, I worked at the International Base in Hammett, California.
I escaped from that base on March 25th, 2012. You escaped?
Escaped.
That's right.
I had to plan that escape for six months.
We can go into this in more detail, but just let me give you the short story.
unidentified
Okay.
ron miscavige
About a year and a half later, there was a private investigator caught by the name of Dwayne Powell who was around the corner from my house looking at a house to buy so he could spy on me from that house.
unidentified
Okay.
ron miscavige
There's no shit.
So a lady in the neighborhood saw him and she thought he was a drug dealer or up to no good.
So she called the West Dallas police and Nick Pye came out and confronted the guy.
He gave Nick some shit, and Nick said, hey, listen, man, you're under arrest.
Do you mind if I look in your car?
So Nick went to the van and opened it up, and in a trunk, there were five license plates from five different states.
There were two handguns, a stun gun, two rifles, one fitted up with a silencer, and 2,000 rounds of ammunition.
So they arrested the guy.
They took him in for interrogation.
And then his son came looking for him because his son was a partner in this business.
The father's name was Dwayne Powell and the son was Daniel Powell.
Daniel came looking for his father.
And by the way, if you want to hear these interviews, they're on Tony Ortega's website.
Tony Ortega, the underground bunker.
You can hear what I'm telling you.
unidentified
Okay.
ron miscavige
So Daniel is telling me, you know, how they operated.
They were getting paid $10,000 a week to follow me and report on my doings from 8 o'clock in the morning till 8 o'clock every night.
An incident happened in Janesville, Wisconsin.
joe rogan
What do you do?
What could you possibly do that would be worth studying?
Is it just to freak you out?
That's what I don't understand.
If I follow Jamie, you know what I'm going to get?
I'm going to get Jamie looking at the internet, Jamie watching basketball, maybe Jamie goes to the gym, maybe Jamie goes for a run, maybe Jamie goes on Tinder and does a little swipe and write.
I don't know.
What do people do that you could get out of watching them?
It's not like you're out there burying bodies.
ron miscavige
No kidding.
Anyway, just let me continue, because this goes on.
So they're interrogating them.
That's Nick Pye, and there's an alcohol, tobacco, and firearms agent, Ricky Hankins, because they were concerned about that silencer.
They thought, hey, maybe they're out to hit me, because I am the father of the chairman of the board.
So then Daniel, the son, is being interrogated, and he said they followed me to a town called Janesville, Wisconsin, where I went shopping in an Aldi's grocery store.
unidentified
Okay.
joe rogan
This is very detailed.
ron miscavige
Well, I'm telling you, this is what happened.
So I come out, and I had bags of grocery, and it was the summertime, so I had a pocket T-shirt on.
I bent over to put the groceries in the car.
I thought my cell phone was going to fall out.
I grabbed my left chest.
They're looking at me in the van, which they had been following me in.
They saw me.
The father called his contact and said, listen, it looks like the target is having a heart attack.
What shall we do?
They referred to me as the target.
joe rogan
Oh, Jesus.
ron miscavige
No shit.
They got a silencer and fucking 2,000 rounds of ammo.
All right.
joe rogan
Okay.
ron miscavige
So they called.
The guy, Greg, said, listen, let me call you back.
A couple minutes later, a guy come on the phone, identified himself as David Miscavige, and he said to them, listen, if it's his time to die, let him die.
Don't do anything.
Don't intervene.
That's my son.
All right?
joe rogan
Well, it didn't just happen, right?
I mean, you didn't...
I don't want to interrupt your story because I feel like it goes on.
But, I mean, your relationship with your son didn't just start there.
So it had to go sour.
ron miscavige
No shit.
joe rogan
Right?
ron miscavige
Listen, my relationship with David when he was a kid...
It was incredible.
I mean, we got along great.
He was a snappy little kid.
He was just very bright, great sense of humor.
Just, I enjoyed his company.
But as he grew older, as he got into Scientology, which I got him in, by the way, and I can get into that, how I got him in, he then started acquiring power.
And I think he went from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde.
As an example, when I worked on staff, he never referred to me as Dad.
He called me Ron.
The base that I lived on in Hammett It got to the point where if you wanted to send a letter to somebody, you had to write the letter, put it in an unsealed envelope, the security guards would read it, see if there was anything bad in there that I shouldn't be saying, send it back, and I would correct it.
When it was okay, then they'd seal the envelope and send it out.
If I wanted to call somebody on the telephone, I had to have somebody listening on the other extension.
joe rogan
And this is by his orders?
Or is this just how Scientology runs?
ron miscavige
No, it's not how Scientology works.
He is the undisputed dictator of Scientology.
So this is his entire doing.
That's the way he wanted it to run.
Scientology in 1970, when I got in, was totally different.
joe rogan
How was it then?
ron miscavige
It was like for a free spirit, you know, just very laissez-faire, but you did courses.
You could come in and do things that would actually improve your ability to communicate, to have better interpersonal relations.
joe rogan
I bought the book.
I bought Dianetics in 1994 because I moved to California and I was really into self-help books and stuff like that.
And I saw one of those late night infomercial ads.
And I was like, this looks like the reactive mind.
Hey, I want to have control of the reactive mind.
And, you know, I got into it, I read it a little bit, and I was like, hmm, probably some good principles in here, some decent ideas.
And I always associated Scientologists with being positive people that got a lot of things done.
ron miscavige
That's a very true statement.
And I'm telling you, at what they call the bottom of the bridge, because the entire Scientology experience would be A bridge to total freedom.
You enter in at a certain point, you're given basic things, basic courses, basic communication skills that you're taught.
And I'm telling you, you go out on the street after you do this stuff, and you're more effective in handling life.
joe rogan
So the early stages of it you feel are very effective.
ron miscavige
Absolutely.
They're very effective.
I mean, they were effective then, they're effective today.
If you learn the proper communication formula, That will improve your life alone.
joe rogan
Sure.
ron miscavige
Just communicating correctly, knowing there's parts of it.
It's not just, hey, you, and the other guy says, what do you want?
No, it's literally get the other person's attention, make sure you're giving him a communication that he can understand.
You're not going to talk to somebody in French if he's English, you know, just all little details that you learn and you drill these.
And then there's other things about interpersonal relationships with your wife or a group.
You learn these, you're better off.
joe rogan
So they're essentially telling you how to be a better person in the beginning.
ron miscavige
Yes, and part of that, you would then also become more positive just simply by having these skills.
joe rogan
Well, this sounds good.
ron miscavige
It is good.
joe rogan
So where does it go bad?
ron miscavige
Well, here's where it goes bad.
Look, the further on you get in, Let me back up a second.
Let's say you learn the component parts of communication.
And you say, hey, you know what?
This is good shit.
You agree to that.
That's the first step on taking you on this entire journey.
And then maybe you'll learn how you could divide your business into seven parts so that you could monitor various parts of it, or your life into seven parts so you could manage how you're doing income-wise, how education is your public relations.
These are all things you can easily agree to.
So now, a little later on, there's a datum or a fact introduced that doesn't quite make sense to you.
You think, you know what, everything they told me was good so far, I'm just going to accept this.
Now you're on the road.
joe rogan
Can you give me an example?
Is it like Xenu type shit?
ron miscavige
Well, yeah, that would be a big example.
joe rogan
But that's way down the line, right?
ron miscavige
That's way down the line.
joe rogan
But there's some early wackiness that give you indications that...
ron miscavige
Well, no, I'm going to tell you something.
I think you're right.
I think that's the one where you've agreed to so many things so far, and all of the auditing you've gotten that's helped you.
When it comes to that, as an example, when I got on that level, I thought, well, wait a minute.
There's 150 billion people on 76 nearby planets.
And they brought them here in spaceships.
How the fuck did they get everybody here?
I looked at it from...
joe rogan
Physics point of view?
ron miscavige
Yeah, from a point of view of logistics.
joe rogan
Right, it's a lot of spaceships.
ron miscavige
But I thought, well, I'll accept it.
I'll just do it.
joe rogan
150 billion people?
ron miscavige
Per planet.
The problem was overpopulation, right?
joe rogan
Oh.
ron miscavige
But do you see what I'm saying?
So, at that point, you've agreed to so many things that were right.
joe rogan
Right, I understand.
ron miscavige
When it comes up to that...
You're not going to say, hey, you're out of your goddamn mind.
joe rogan
So it's helping you give you a direction in life.
It's making you more positive.
It's giving you better communication skills.
You have a structure that you can follow when you communicate with people.
It makes you more presentable.
So everything's good in the beginning.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Why doesn't somebody just take that part and just, like, get rid of the rest?
ron miscavige
Listen, I tell in my book what we're looking at right here.
You know, ruthless, Scientology, my son David Miscavige and me.
I say at the very end, if they were just to stick to the beginning things, number one, and number two, have a general amnesty where they forgive everybody who they think has tried to dunderman.
The shit's gonna hit the fan, but maybe at the end of it, you'd get some people back and knock off the disconnection policy.
I think if they did that, it could be one of the best self-help groups ever.
But once you get up into those upper levels where they tell you you're going to become a superhuman, as an example, you'll be able to, as a spiritual being, leave your body and go some other place, as an example, and read a newspaper in Germany.
joe rogan
Huh.
Isn't that like remote viewing?
ron miscavige
Yes.
And I'm going to tell you, Joe, I was involved for 42 years.
joe rogan
You never went to Germany?
ron miscavige
No.
joe rogan
Never left your body?
ron miscavige
France and Portugal, but you know, what the fuck?
No.
Seriously, though, I never met one person that ever achieved that, nor did I achieve it.
But you don't talk about it.
joe rogan
I understand.
ron miscavige
One of the things that say, you don't talk about your case to somebody else.
So that's compartmentalized.
So everybody who's done this is thinking, eh, I never got it.
Maybe I'm the only one.
joe rogan
Right.
So, like, maybe if I just keep working at this, one day I'm going to pop through.
ron miscavige
That's exactly it.
And you keep on going for the next level.
joe rogan
Do they explain how you're going to do that?
Is it through meditation techniques?
Is it through some sort of hypnosis?
Like, how are they supposed to go to Germany and read a newspaper?
ron miscavige
Well, there's drills that they have you do, like in the earlier, what they call OT levels, operating thetan.
Thetan is a word they use for spiritual being.
And one of the drills that you would do would be spot three objects outside of your body, spot three objects inside your body, spot three objects outside your body, spot three objects inside your body on a repetitive basis.
And that's supposed to Let you out, as an example.
joe rogan
So it's like a meditation.
ron miscavige
I guess it would be.
joe rogan
When you say spot, are you saying like envision?
ron miscavige
Well, I mean, in the physical universe, you can look at three spots.
joe rogan
So you look at like that clock, this book, like that kind of thing?
unidentified
Yeah, three of them.
joe rogan
And then inside your body, just think?
ron miscavige
You'd envision three spots in your body.
joe rogan
Your lungs, your ribs?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Okay.
ron miscavige
But then the other thing is, like when you get to OT3 and you're talking about body thetans, these are the...
Alien beings that were brought here, put on a nearby volcano, an hydrogen bomb was set off, and they sent up a ray, grabbed these people.
You can look on the internet and find this out.
joe rogan
Oh, no, I've read it all.
ron miscavige
Okay.
joe rogan
Unfortunately.
ron miscavige
And what happens then is they are all latched to your body like a bunch of fleas.
joe rogan
Damn it.
ron miscavige
And they're affecting your thinking.
joe rogan
Right.
ron miscavige
And your personality.
And the idea on these upper levels is to get rid of all of them.
And achieve this.
Nobody's ever done it.
Look, if there were three people who did it, I'd say, you know, maybe it can be done.
Not a fucking one.
Excuse my French, buddy.
joe rogan
No, you can swear away.
ron miscavige
Okay.
Listen, I got my doctorate degree in swearing in the United States Marine Corps.
joe rogan
So how did you go from that to this?
How do you go from the Marine Corps, which is about as real as it gets, to this?
You're just looking to improve yourself?
ron miscavige
Yes.
I was always...
Listen, as a little kid...
In Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, where I was born and raised.
I used to go up in our garret or the attic, whatever you want to call it.
And my dad had all these books there.
And I used to take books off the shelf and read them and try to find out about life.
I was always looking for something.
And always looking to improve myself or find a better way to live.
And I had a friend back in the 60s, Nelson Sandy.
I'm a musician, too.
I don't know whether you knew that.
joe rogan
No, I didn't.
ron miscavige
Yeah, I played professionally my whole life.
Nelson Sandy, and I've also been in the sales business because I had four kids, and you know, you've got to pay the bills no matter what you do.
So Nelson was a friend of mine in sales, and one day he said to me, Ron, how would you like to make an extra $100,000 a year?
I said, what the hell, you know?
Great.
So he introduced me to something called Holiday Magic.
It was a multi-marketing scheme, alright?
You know what I mean by multi-marketing, like Amway, right?
joe rogan
Yeah.
ron miscavige
What scheme?
joe rogan
Pyramid scheme, right?
ron miscavige
Pyramid, yeah.
So I went to an opportunity meeting, and I thought, you know, maybe I could do this.
So I bought in, and I started doing it, and one day we're at an opportunity meeting that we were running.
And there's a girl standing next to me talking to a guy over here, and I'm talking to this guy.
This guy says, I'm a Scientologist.
I just hang on a second.
What is that?
I pinned him down for about a half an hour, and for whatever reason, the name rang a bell.
So, he told me that I could go visit somebody who was a Scientologist, and they discuss it one day a week, a guy by the name of Frank Ogle in Woodbury, New Jersey.
By the way, you're from North Jersey, aren't you?
joe rogan
Yeah, Newark.
ron miscavige
Newark, yeah.
Okay, so I go to this place, and he would have little classes where he'd talk about communication and various things.
I went there for about four days in a month.
Like for a month, one day a week, and I thought, okay, I got it now.
Another factor here, David, when he was born, was cursed with an asthma condition that was the bane of his existence.
I mean, as a little baby, sometimes he turned blue, he couldn't breathe out, and it was horrible to watch this.
And I was the one who took care of that just about Totally.
As a matter of fact, when he would have these attacks, I would take him to a pediatrician in Burlington, New Jersey, called Dr. Ziegler.
He'd give him a shot of adrenaline.
And I knew that giving a little kid a shot of adrenaline was not great.
Okay?
So I would try all kinds of...
joe rogan
They didn't have inhalers back then?
ron miscavige
They had inhalers, but that's handling the...
The symptom, not the cause.
And I didn't know what to do to handle the cause.
joe rogan
Right.
ron miscavige
I used to do shit like one winter.
He's just in a full-blown attack, turning blue.
It's in a cold Jersey, you know, cold Jersey winter.
I took him upstairs to the bathroom, took off his clothes, took off mine, stood in the shower, said, David, I'm not punishing, man.
I'm with you.
I had the warm water on.
I turned it off.
That water's not coming out of there about 34 degrees.
He started breathing.
Kicked it.
Wiped them down with a Turkish towel.
That handled it for the moment.
I used to do shit like that.
Anything to handle them.
So now, I found out about Scientology from this Nelson Sandy.
And Frank Ogle was the guy.
I took David down one day and I said, is there anything you can do for David with Scientology?
Auditing, which is basically another word for counseling.
unidentified
Right.
ron miscavige
He took David in and 45 minutes later, David comes out.
I say, how's it going?
He says, dad, I'm handled.
And he never had another severe attack in his entire youth.
joe rogan
How is that possible?
ron miscavige
With communication.
joe rogan
With communication you can stop asthma?
ron miscavige
You come to the point where you have a realization maybe where it started or how you could be contributing to it or maybe where it starts kicking in you.
joe rogan
How old was he when you brought him in there?
ron miscavige
I guess this was, he was about nine years old.
joe rogan
Wow.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Okay.
So, like, what tools did they use to help him kick asthma?
ron miscavige
That.
Communication.
joe rogan
Just communication.
Like, hi, what's going on?
You got asthma, buddy?
That's communication.
Like, what do you mean by communication?
unidentified
Okay.
ron miscavige
He used what's called creative processing, which is something that they used to use.
And what it is, is you figure out how you could be contributing to that, and then you do a mental image picture of something that you think you're doing to contribute to that.
And back and forth.
It's a little...
For me to try to explain it in a little session like this, it's a little hard because...
Well, it's a little hard to understand, but it did work on him.
joe rogan
So you're saying in some sense, asthma may be psychosomatic and may be in your head?
ron miscavige
For him, it was to that degree.
Yes, I am saying that.
joe rogan
And he never got asthma again?
ron miscavige
He never had a severe attack again.
He had minor attacks.
joe rogan
But he was able to stop them with these methods?
ron miscavige
He used to get attacks so bad that it would debilitate him.
I mean...
He was out of school for a week one time with an asthmatic attack.
This is before I ever took him to see Frank Ogle.
And that impressed me.
The fact that this handled that for the moment anyway.
So with that and some other things, I decided I'm going to get my whole family in Scientology.
Because look, his whole life, that was a problem for me to handle.
And this, at least at that moment, got him to the point where...
He was like in charge of it.
It didn't happen to him again that severe.
Does that make sense?
joe rogan
Yeah, it does make sense.
So that's what persuaded you to begin?
ron miscavige
Quite a bit.
joe rogan
So everything was good for a while.
ron miscavige
Right.
I got in.
I'll tell you how good it was.
I got in and my whole family got in.
I decided to take my whole family to England and in 1972 I moved there for a year and three months and had the whole family study Scientology.
joe rogan
In England?
ron miscavige
Yeah.
Yeah, and then came back for a little while and went over again in 1974, studied more Scientology.
When I was there at that time, I got a recording deal with the Polydor Company, solo album, and I got a writer's contract with Chappell's Publishing, and I got asked to play on VBC. All of this is in the book, by the way.
I'll give you details.
joe rogan
So this was all while L. Ron Hubbard was alive?
ron miscavige
While he was alive, yeah.
joe rogan
Did you meet him?
ron miscavige
Never met him.
Nope.
joe rogan
But your son did?
ron miscavige
Listen, my son joined the Sea Organization when he was 16 years old.
Within seven months, he was working with L. Ron Hubbard.
joe rogan
What is the Sea Organization?
Explain that to people.
ron miscavige
Okay.
There are several different ways that you could do Scientology.
The number one way would be is if you're a public person and you just go into an organization.
They're called orgs.
You go in and you buy services, but you live in the outside world.
You have a job, you have a home, you know, all these things, but you pay for a service.
That's number one.
Another level would be that you worked for an organization and You could sign a two-and-a-half-year or a five-year contract to work there.
joe rogan
Don't they have, like, billion-year contracts, too?
ron miscavige
Well, now what?
You're getting ahead of it.
That's working for an organization on the level of a two-and-a-half or a five-year contract.
The last step would be the C organization.
There you sign a billion-year contract.
In other words, you're signing away your future lives to get this Scientology disseminated.
joe rogan
Has anybody ever challenged one of those billion-year contracts?
Like, what does it mean?
ron miscavige
Like, do you owe them anything for billion years?
Listen, you're getting the skinny, and as hard as this is to believe, once you're in it for a while, and you see that this is helping you and maybe your family, The point of is that they want to get this disseminated to every man, woman, and child on the planet and improve life for everybody.
So it's like you're on this crusade to get it disseminated.
joe rogan
So they believe they're doing this to help people.
ron miscavige
Yes.
joe rogan
It all sounds good, right?
All sounds good in the beginning.
ron miscavige
Well, it reads better than it lives.
It's not that way at all, though.
joe rogan
Well, how is it?
ron miscavige
How is it?
I'll tell you.
These days?
Right now, like?
joe rogan
Sure.
ron miscavige
They get people to donate money to what's called the International Association of Scientologists, or donate money to build a new church someplace, and they give you a piece of paper and commend you, you know?
It's a nice business, low overhead, you know?
joe rogan
So, you give them money, they give you paper?
ron miscavige
They give you a commendation, or saying you're this or that.
unidentified
Some level, right, you've achieved some success.
ron miscavige
And the thing is, look, they've opened a lot of new buildings.
But, Joe...
There's not people in there.
There's air, okay?
But they say we're expanding.
They're expanding their real estate interests, but they're not expanding the number of people in Scientology.
joe rogan
Why is that?
ron miscavige
Well, if you go on the internet, you can find out all the abuses they've done.
Like people going bankrupt because they had to contribute so much money they get a second and third mortgage on their house, give it to the church.
They can't afford it.
They have to declare bankruptcy.
People being disconnected from their families.
joe rogan
Let's talk about that.
I want to go back to the Sea Org thing for a second, but then let's talk about that.
Talk about that.
ron miscavige
Yeah.
joe rogan
So the Sea Org thing is your son joins the Sea Org when he's 16 years old?
unidentified
Yeah.
ron miscavige
Here's what happened.
I came home from work one day, and he's laying in his room on his bed, kind of like that, with his head in his hands.
I said, hey, Dave, what's up, man?
He says, daddy, I don't want to go to school anymore.
I said, why not?
He said, listen, all the kids are taking drugs.
They just...
They don't show the teachers any respect.
They're not willing to learn anything.
He says, I want to join the Sea Org.
I want to help L. Ron Hubbard.
Because by this time, we've been to England twice.
He's trained to be an auditor.
An auditor is a person who applies this technology of Scientology in auditing or counseling, okay?
And he says, this is what I want to do.
Well, I thought to myself, he's 15. He's going to be 16 shortly.
Look, when I was 17, I joined the Marines.
My dad had to sign for me because I was only 17. And it probably was one of the best moves I ever made.
I mean, the first night in boot camp, I said to myself, this is the worst fucking mistake I've ever made in my life.
At that moment, 12 weeks later, I said to myself, I can make myself do anything.
And in that 12 weeks, it turned me from an undisciplined civilian into a disciplined Marine.
And I've utilized that my whole life.
It's helped me always.
I kind of looked at that and I thought, well, I was 17. Maybe it looked like I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but I came out a winner.
And if David wants to do this, and what is he going to get out of going to school?
And he has no desire to do anything else.
I said, okay, I'll help you.
So that was it.
So when he was 16, the next day, we put him on a plane.
He went down to the Flag Land Base in Florida.
And as I say, within, I think it was seven or eight months, he was working right with L. Ron Hubbard out in California.
joe rogan
Now, the Sea Org, like, is it a boat?
You're actually on a boat?
ron miscavige
No.
The Sea Organization is a term used because...
In 1967, Ron started what he called the Sea Project, where he bought this ship and invited people to come with him to contribute to this project.
Saying that his research could be done better away from land masses.
I mean, in fact, the law was after him.
joe rogan
Oh, right.
It was a tax thing, right?
ron miscavige
Yeah, I mean, they were trying to snag him, and when you're out in international waters, they can't serve you a subpoena.
But it was such an adventure story.
Right.
It's clever.
joe rogan
Plus, you get to wear a captain's outfit.
ron miscavige
No, not everybody.
joe rogan
He got to, right?
ron miscavige
Oh, yeah.
Admiral, not captain.
joe rogan
Did he give himself medals?
ron miscavige
Elrond Hubbard?
joe rogan
Yeah.
ron miscavige
You know, I never saw that.
All I saw was that he was considered the Commodore.
But you remember the Peace Corps?
joe rogan
Yes.
ron miscavige
Alright, now that was an adventure, and people would go on that.
unidentified
Sure.
ron miscavige
But they actually were doing something, though.
joe rogan
Right.
What was the Sea Org doing?
ron miscavige
Well, the Sea Org was on this ship, and they'd have people come there for advanced-level services, get that, and they would send missions out to various organizations to correct any outnesses in the way maybe they were delivering the technology or fix something that was going wrong.
It was run like a little military organization.
And then the Sea Org went ashore and they established the flag land base in Clearwater, Florida.
So that is still referred to as flag.
Yet when L.R. and Hubbard had the ships, that was considered the flagship.
joe rogan
Okay.
ron miscavige
Am I filling you in enough on this?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah.
So he joined that.
He ascended through the ranks.
He's working with L. Ron Hubbard.
Yeah.
And slowly you guys get disconnected.
Is that what happens?
ron miscavige
No.
As a matter of fact, when he was doing that, we were still in very good communication with each other.
Like, I'm telling you something.
We had a lot of great times together when he was growing up.
There's no two ways about it.
And I can't say that it was like bad relationship in any way.
There was a guy by the name of Lord Acton.
He was a Britisher.
He was a member of Parliament.
He lived from 1834 to the early 1900s.
He's the one that made the observation, power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
And I think this is what happened to David.
That when L. Ron Hubbard died, he saw a chance to move up And he got people out of the way who didn't want to cooperate with him, put people on various posts that would cooperate with him, and he took over the ownership and the leadership of Scientology.
And what contributed to that was an incident where he had a severe asthmatic attack and they had to take him to the emergency room of a hospital.
Paul Grady is the guy that took him there.
And when Paul picked him up after they did the stuff, they handled him, he was okay.
David said to Paul, listen, I had a great realization when I was there, and it's this.
Power is not granted.
It is assumed.
So he assumed the leadership of Scientology, and he rose right to the top.
That's how that happened.
joe rogan
So how did you get disconnected from him?
ron miscavige
Well, look, there was an event that he had.
Not an event.
There's something that he did, which...
He'll always be admired for it.
He actually got the Church of Scientology tax exemption.
Alright?
He literally got the IRS to grant the fact that this is a church.
You have now a tax exemption.
People contribute to it.
Can you deduct it?
That was a very, very big win.
That then gave him power.
Okay?
I decided to join the Sea Organization in 1985. I wanted to contribute to doing whatever I could to help them.
I joined the C organization and I'm at the Hammett base.
I'm coming out of the music studio because since I was a musician I worked in the music studio and we did films.
I composed music for various technical films we had or public relations films.
And I walked out of the studio one day and I saw him a little distance off to the left with an entourage and I yelled out, Hey Dave!
And he turned around and he looked at me.
And I'm telling you, Joe, he gave me a look that I thought, I better never do that again.
On that base, I was then a staff member.
The fact that I was biologically his father, and in fact, his father, he referred to me as Ron when he spoke to me.
When he sent me a gift for my birthday or Christmas or something, he always said, Dear Dad.
But that was the beginning.
Now, further on down the road we got, the more it became...
I used to have to call him sir after a while, okay?
It became more and more me, Ron Miscavige, the staff member, and David, the leader of the church.
Once they started implementing the rules at the base, Where you couldn't send a letter out without it being checked.
Where you surround it with barbed wire pointing in and pointing out.
You couldn't talk on a telephone without having somebody listen.
You couldn't drive off on your own to go to a store to get a fucking pair of underwear.
You had to order it on the internet.
If you got on the internet, there was a filter on it where anything about Miscavige or Scientology come up, you'd be blocked.
So now I'm living a sequestered life, waking up in the morning, going to breakfast at 9 o'clock, 9.30, having a muster.
You know what a muster is?
unidentified
No.
ron miscavige
Okay, you line up your people and account for everybody.
All right?
12 o'clock, go to lunch.
12.30, line up for another muster.
Go to work in the afternoon.
5 o'clock, go to dinner.
5.30, go to another muster.
And then work the rest of the night.
Or sometimes, 9.30 or 10 o'clock, have another muster.
That was my life.
Seven days a week.
Except on Saturday, you'd work on the grounds to beautify the base.
joe rogan
Doesn't sound like a good time, Ron.
ron miscavige
It's a great existence, Joe.
Is it?
How would you like to live that way?
joe rogan
It doesn't sound good.
ron miscavige
It wasn't good.
joe rogan
Were you stuck?
ron miscavige
Well, here's the thing.
There were enough times when I did things that were good, like we would do an album.
As a matter of fact, here's something that we didn't.
I first got in, and there was a book that came out called Mission Earth that L. Ron Hubbard wrote.
Edgar Winner.
You remember Edgar Winner or no?
joe rogan
Edgar Winner, Johnny Winner's brother?
ron miscavige
Yes.
joe rogan
The musician?
ron miscavige
The musician.
The rock guy.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ron miscavige
Okay, Edgar came to the bass and we did an album.
I played on the album with him.
joe rogan
Edgar Winner came to the...
unidentified
Wow.
ron miscavige
He was a Scientologist.
joe rogan
He was?
ron miscavige
He probably still is.
joe rogan
Wow.
One of them's dead, right?
ron miscavige
Johnny's dead.
Johnny's dead.
Yeah, Johnny's dead.
But Edgar...
I mean, he was...
You have no idea how good he is until you see him operate in the studio.
Anyway, I played the trumpet parts on the album.
I played solos and some of the stuff.
That was what I did, and it was a great time.
Bust your ass working, but that's a good time.
Isaac Hayes.
I used to do gigs with him.
Of course, you know how Isaac Hayes is.
Great guy, and those were fun times.
There were other things that we did that turned out good.
But then there's time in between, where you're working sometimes days on end.
Okay, a couple days, no sleep.
Working your ass off.
And if you screwed up, it was hell to pay.
joe rogan
What kind of work is being done?
What is all the work?
ron miscavige
Okay, I'll give you an example.
There's about six major events that are done by the church every year.
In New Year's there's a major event, okay?
And then in March you have L. Ron Hubbard's birthday.
And then in May you have Dianetics.
joe rogan
What do you guys do for L. Ron's birthday?
ron miscavige
Well there would be an event where you would Show him in various aspects of life Improving life in some aspect and we have a video on that and we would have to write music for that Sydney would have to shoot the pictures or take old pictures and Produce these edit them we do music for it and we'd have a product or an event when David's doing the event they could present this for when the The anniversary of Dianetics, Modern Science and Mental Health, that was another event.
joe rogan
Okay.
So you're preparing for events, essentially?
ron miscavige
All the time.
You'd end one, you'd have to start the next one.
In June, you have the anniversary of the maiden voyage.
That was something we did every year.
And then there's Auditor's Day in August, alright?
And then there's the International Association of Scientology event in October.
joe rogan
So all this time you're just constantly working, you're never hanging out with your son, you don't have any quality time together?
ron miscavige
Sometimes he would come to the base for two months and wouldn't even give me a phone call.
Look, Joe, you gotta understand, I wish the fuck this didn't turn out this way, okay?
Just straight up.
joe rogan
So do you feel responsible in any way for bringing him in?
unidentified
Well...
ron miscavige
Everybody deals with life the way they deal with it.
My other son isn't that way and my daughters aren't that way.
joe rogan
Is your other son Scientology as well?
ron miscavige
He's out of Scientology now.
joe rogan
Did he quit with you?
ron miscavige
He quit earlier than me.
joe rogan
And what about your daughters?
ron miscavige
They're in.
joe rogan
They're in?
ron miscavige
Yes.
joe rogan
And are you disconnected from them?
ron miscavige
They're disconnected from me.
joe rogan
Right, you're not allowed to, they're not allowed to talk to you.
ron miscavige
Well, here's what happens though.
If they were to talk to me, their friends would disconnect from them.
If you have a job with a Scientology employer and they found out that you talked to me, you'd get fired that day.
It's insidious.
It spreads out.
The penalty for talking to what's called a suppressive person, which would be me, like a real-life prick.
As an example, when I was 70 years old, David and my two daughters bought me a car.
Okay?
A car.
When I was 75 years old, my daughter sent me 75 gifts.
Now I left.
Now I'm the worst father who's ever lived.
I'm a slimeball.
They character assassinate me on their hate sites.
They would give a card to somebody who was that bad.
Oh, we made a mistake.
He really was a prick all along.
It doesn't make sense.
So if you're trying to make sense out of it, it doesn't make sense.
But this is built into the policy of Scientology.
Anybody who leaves And says anything about the church, could be considered to be a suppressive person.
joe rogan
And was this always the case?
Or has this been exacerbated?
ron miscavige
Well, L. Ron Hubbard wrote the policies while he was alive.
joe rogan
He also wrote more fiction than anybody that's ever lived.
ron miscavige
Yeah.
joe rogan
Does everybody know that inside the church?
ron miscavige
They probably do, yeah.
joe rogan
But didn't they...
Does anybody make that connection?
ron miscavige
No.
joe rogan
No.
The guy wrote more fake shit than any person that's ever walked the face of the earth, but he also had the time to talk to the aliens to get all this data to write this real stuff.
That's a suspension of disbelief that defies logic.
ron miscavige
Well, as I said...
joe rogan
Or defies understanding, I should say.
Maybe I just need to get to a higher OTC. What is it?
Is that it?
ron miscavige
OT Levels.
Operating Thetan Levels.
But you've got to understand, most people who do it, Don't have rocks in their head.
They're not nuts.
They're not stupid people.
joe rogan
No, I've talked...
I had a neighbor who's a Scientologist, a very nice guy.
ron miscavige
Yeah.
joe rogan
And he sort of fit that bill that I was talking about earlier.
Sure, go ahead.
He fit that bill that I was talking about earlier, where he's a guy that's always improving himself, he's healthy, exercised, he's well-kept, he was a nice neighbor.
He's a good guy.
And, you know, I was like, all right.
I sort of looked into Scientology after I became friends with him.
You know, I mean, I got the book early on, like I said, but I never really did anything other than read the book.
I never looked into...
This is before the internet, you know?
The internet sort of exposed all this stuff to a lot of people.
ron miscavige
That was the end of it.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ron miscavige
That literally is the end of Scientology.
joe rogan
And how much has it dropped off since then?
ron miscavige
Well, it's been estimated by people who would know that there's maybe 20,000 Scientologists right now.
joe rogan
What was it at its peak?
ron miscavige
I think it was in the early 90s, about 100,000.
joe rogan
Wow.
ron miscavige
Yeah.
joe rogan
20,000.
That's like a good Louis C.K. concert.
ron miscavige
Well, the thing is, most people like at that international base...
Are people who have been around for 25, 30, 35, 40 years.
joe rogan
Right.
ron miscavige
And you think, okay, how could you live this way?
Look, most people are not going to do what I do.
I was 76 years old when I left, okay?
joe rogan
And you were 75 when they gave you 75 gifts.
So you're like, this is not enough.
I got to get the fuck out of here.
ron miscavige
No.
You mean not enough gifts?
I should have gotten 76, right?
joe rogan
Yeah.
ron miscavige
Listen, I was...
Well, actually, I'll tell you something that happened, and I brought this just to show you, and you have a little...
joe rogan
What is that?
It's a Kindle.
Are you allowed to have those in there?
ron miscavige
No.
joe rogan
Really?
You can't have a Kindle?
ron miscavige
And I didn't know why.
I didn't know why.
What happened is this.
David gave me this Kindle.
And the security guards were doing their nut trying to get it away from me.
But they wouldn't come and strong-arm me because David is the man.
joe rogan
So David gave it to you and the security guards were trying to take it away from you.
Why?
ron miscavige
Okay, I didn't know.
joe rogan
Did you tell him it was loaded up with L. Ron Hubbard books?
ron miscavige
Well, it was!
It was his fiction books that he put in there for me.
joe rogan
Battlefield Earth?
ron miscavige
No, not Battlefield Earth, nor Mission Earth.
But the other earlier fiction was on here.
joe rogan
Oh, okay.
ron miscavige
Which I thought was pretty interesting.
But anyway, they're trying to get this.
I say, hey, fuck you, man.
Dave gave me this.
This is mine, you know?
Oh, okay, Ron.
They'd back off.
Now, one day, I'm reading something, and there's a feature on here where you see this...
Is the camera on that now?
joe rogan
Yeah.
ron miscavige
Okay.
You see this little...
Switch here.
That goes this way, this way, up, down, and in.
So if you got a word that you'd like to look up and get the meaning of, you'd go to the library, not the library, the dictionary, and you'd select the word and press it to the right and it would say search store.
I accidentally held it a little bit too long and it went right past search store and To Google.
I was on the internet with no filter.
joe rogan
With your Kindle.
ron miscavige
With my Kindle.
And what the fuck is this?
joe rogan
You didn't even know about the Google back then?
ron miscavige
I knew about the Google, but there was filter on all their computers.
joe rogan
Oh, but you could go through it with that.
ron miscavige
There's no filter on this.
unidentified
Wow.
ron miscavige
And that's why the security guards were trying to get it.
But they wouldn't tell me that, obviously.
They're not going to say, well, there's no filter so you can get it on the internet.
I mean...
These guys weren't that swift.
They weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer, but...
joe rogan
But how did they know then?
How'd they know about that feature?
ron miscavige
Ah, they're the ones who, if you get a computer, you give it to them, they put a filter on it, and then they give it back to you.
joe rogan
Oh, okay.
So they just never...
ron miscavige
So they got some techno geeks who had to do that shit.
joe rogan
But they had never done that to the Kindle.
ron miscavige
But they wanted to.
Well, they wanted to take it away from me straight up.
joe rogan
So did you start Googling stuff with your Kindle?
ron miscavige
I looked at Google.
unidentified
Now...
ron miscavige
This is the first time I told this story, by the way, Joe.
This is an exclusive, you know?
joe rogan
Oh, I'm excited.
ron miscavige
Yeah.
Well, I'll tell you.
One of the things I looked at was like L. Ron Hubbard's war record.
He was not a hero.
He didn't have two purple hearts.
This is a fucking made-up story.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ron miscavige
And there was a girl named Annie Tidman...
Who was with L. Ron Hubbard when he died.
Annie Tidman was a messenger with L. Ron Hubbard since she was a little girl and she was with him when he actually died.
So Annie was a long-term loyal Scientologist.
She's at the base where I lived in Hammett and she got lung cancer.
So they sent her to Los Angeles to get care and they sent a girl down To be like a personal servant to take care of her needs so she'd be okay.
So occasionally I would say to Martine, who's the medical liaison officer, in other words, she took care of our health and she'd have us go to the doctors and stuff.
I said, Martine, how's Annie doing?
Oh, Ronnie, she's doing great.
unidentified
Yeah.
ron miscavige
Okay, good.
I'm on a Kindle.
She died six months earlier.
Never told anybody on the base.
Now, we're living in these apartments on the base.
This is several days later.
And there was a building called the laundry room where you took your clothes to get cleaned and pressed.
You picked up sheets.
Little amenities like that.
And there's two girls outside the laundry room.
And they said, Ronnie, would you want to chip in for a birthday present for Annie?
I said, nah, I'm going to pass on it now.
And they thought, Jesus Christ.
They either know and they're keeping up the ruse or they don't know and they're being used as shills to make sure people think she's still alive.
Well, that was a major thing for me.
I then started to think I got to get out of here.
Mind you, I thought earlier things were starting to go south and we would have I'll give you an example.
Here's what happened.
We're on the ship, and we're playing for a show at one of these maiden voyages, anniversary things.
And we have a guy there who's a...
He's not a rap artist, but he's like a beatbox, you know?
Like that, you know?
So now Dougie's up there, and then he starts saying, you know, he says, I'll tell you, my kid was picked up by the cops the other day, but he's not really a bad kid, you know?
He's hanging out with the wrong guys, and blah, blah, blah.
And he's all saying this shit that you don't say to this exclusive audience.
David hears that.
To handle this, me and the rest of the band were sent to work in the bilges on the ship.
Because he fucked up.
We paid the price.
What I should have done was kicked in the band, because I was directing the band, kicked in the band to start playing the music and drowned them out.
You go in the builds, the temperature down there is between 125 and 130 degrees.
I'm in my 60s.
It doesn't matter.
Shit like that would go on.
So when things like that would happen, I thought, man, we can't live this way.
But my wife, Becky, she is an eternal optimist.
She would always say, Ron, it's going to get better.
It can't keep on going this way.
And I'd say, Becky, listen, if you see a boulder rolling down a mountain, that boulder is not going to stop and start rolling up.
It's going to get worse.
If things are going bad, they have a tendency to continue going bad.
joe rogan
It's just fantastic to me that you found out all this information on Google.
ron miscavige
Yeah.
joe rogan
And that you were shielded from all this stuff.
ron miscavige
Yeah.
joe rogan
That's the craziest part.
You were 75 at the time?
Somewhere in that range?
ron miscavige
I was in my 70s in that time.
I think it was two years later that we actually escaped.
joe rogan
So how did you escape?
ron miscavige
Well, first of all, I used to run the music department.
And when I say run it, you know, I'd make sure we did all the jobs we're supposed to do.
And I would compose music.
I worked with a guy by the name of Peter Schles.
And...
We had some nice shit that we did together.
joe rogan
So at this point, you'd been in for how many years?
40 years?
ron miscavige
No, in the Sea Organization, over 20-some years.
joe rogan
20-something years in the Sea Organization, and all in all, Scientology, much more than that.
ron miscavige
Yeah, well, I was in Scientology for 42 years.
joe rogan
This is your only source of income?
ron miscavige
Yeah, it's 50. Well, to begin with, when I got in, we got 30 bucks a week.
And then...
Generous.
What's that?
joe rogan
Generous.
ron miscavige
Well, it went up to $50.
joe rogan
Oh, it's a big raise.
ron miscavige
When you got paid.
joe rogan
When you got paid.
ron miscavige
Sometimes you didn't.
Sometimes you'd go for months without getting paid at all.
Now, the downside of that is you ain't paying much into Social Security.
So if you leave, like some of these people who leave, they got shit for Social Security.
They may have no place to go, no marketable skill, no car.
What are they going to do?
joe rogan
Right.
ron miscavige
So they just stay.
They stay.
They gut it out.
joe rogan
And that's in the position that you were in.
What made you decide?
ron miscavige
Okay.
Well...
joe rogan
Just the Google information?
unidentified
No.
ron miscavige
No, it was the treatment, the way people were being treated, and some of the shit that went down, like...
joe rogan
So would you have been okay if they treated you well, and you still found out that that woman had been dead for six months, that L. Ron Hubbard wasn't really a war hero?
ron miscavige
No, but I'll tell you what.
If they had been actually disseminating this information, and people on this planet were doing better...
And life was becoming better for large numbers of people.
I don't know if I still might be there.
In other words, if you could do something...
joe rogan
So if Scientology was really being effective and doing what you thought it was supposed to do...
ron miscavige
Precisely.
joe rogan
...which is help humanity.
ron miscavige
Precisely.
joe rogan
Do you think that at the core that its potential to help humanity is still there?
You think that, like you were saying, that the beginning stages of Scientology are beneficial and there is something...
ron miscavige
Like if they got all these beneficial things and just offered those.
The odds of that happening, the odds now I'm talking about, would be the same odds as me turning into a penguin right now.
It's not likely to happen.
joe rogan
Not so likely.
ron miscavige
Not very likely.
Maybe, you know.
joe rogan
And your son, he's going to be running it forever?
ron miscavige
There's absolutely nobody who's going to take over.
joe rogan
Is it an election?
ron miscavige
No fucking election.
He runs it and that's the end of it.
He's surrounded by people, I guess you'd call them sycophants or sycophants, who just pump him up all the time.
And if he says, you know who would like to have such and such, maybe he might want a different car.
They'll go out and get it for him.
joe rogan
What are those people like?
What are the people like that surround him that enable him to maintain this power?
ron miscavige
They feel that he's a power source and they support him.
joe rogan
A power source because he runs the organization?
Yes.
ron miscavige
Well, yeah, because he got his tax exemption.
He'll do things.
He's tough.
Actually, David is a very smart guy.
If it weren't for this streak in him where he attained all this power and had this shit going on in Scientology...
Who knows?
I think he could be successful at anything.
joe rogan
Well, I believe that as well.
I think anybody who gets to, I mean, it's really unfortunate, but anybody who gets to any, even a position of being like a drug kingpin, like Pablo Escobar, I'm sure he could have been successful at other things had he decided to focus his mind in that direction.
ron miscavige
You're exactly right, and that's how I feel.
joe rogan
So you feel like your son just fucked up in getting on a path that is, in your eyes, illegitimate versus, you know, him being CEO of IBM or something like that?
ron miscavige
You could say that.
You could say that, and I'll tell you, I think you would be correct.
No, I think.
You would be.
joe rogan
Do you ever talk to him about Scientology?
ron miscavige
No, you don't bring it up.
joe rogan
You don't bring it up?
ron miscavige
No, I mean, look.
Take anybody with that much power.
Do you think you can sit down and say, now look, what I think is, what the fuck are you talking to me about?
I'm running this fucking show, you know?
joe rogan
Yeah, but if it's your dad, I would think you would just sit down.
ron miscavige
I didn't have that line with him, I'm telling you.
Listen, if you're a Scientologist and you're at that level, you are of the belief that no spiritual being is another spiritual being's mother or father or daughter or sister.
You happen to be occupying a body that maybe was given to you by another person, but in your heart you're actually an independent thinking life unit, an immortal one to boot, Right, okay, but let me ask you this.
joe rogan
Do people really believe that, or do they just kind of go along with it because everybody else is going along with it?
Is there ever a time where you're alone with somebody else in the Sea Org, maybe you're setting up some video or something like that, and someone goes, hey man, is this shit on the up and up?
ron miscavige
Very seldom.
joe rogan
Very seldom, but what does happen?
ron miscavige
Well, I'll tell you why, though.
I'll tell you why.
joe rogan
The walls over yours?
ron miscavige
No, fuck no.
joe rogan
Well?
ron miscavige
You're telling this to somebody?
They might write a knowledge report on you.
joe rogan
A knowledge report?
ron miscavige
Now you're in deep shit, okay?
joe rogan
Jamie, I'm writing a knowledge report as soon as we leave here.
ron miscavige
Okay, listen.
joe rogan
Okay.
ron miscavige
You might laugh, but boy, when it's happened, it's serious shit.
joe rogan
Listen, I'm sure.
ron miscavige
And if it's found out later that he said this to you and you didn't write a knowledge report, you are as culpable as he is for saying that.
joe rogan
And what happens to you?
ron miscavige
You go in for interrogation.
joe rogan
Oh, what do they do?
They talk to me?
ron miscavige
Sit you down in a meter.
Tell you what are your crimes.
What evil purpose do you have toward David?
What evil purpose do you have toward L. Ron Hubbard?
What thoughts have you had about leaving?
What thoughts have you had about destroying the organization?
Anything of a harmful nature.
joe rogan
But what if you say, man, fuck this place.
Do they kick you out?
ron miscavige
No.
joe rogan
So how does that work?
What if you get there, what if someone writes a knowledge report and you go, you know what, man?
I've been thinking.
I got on Google.
I started reading a bunch of stuff.
I think it's all bullshit.
I don't even want to be here anymore, man.
And fuck all this working for 50 bucks a week.
This is stupid.
I don't want to do this anymore.
Why are we all doing this?
Why don't we just take the beginning parts of this and just get rid of all this stupid shit about, you know, separating from your children and make this thing better?
What do you say?
What would they do to you?
ron miscavige
Well, first of all, you wouldn't dare do that if you were at a place like I was, at the international base, okay, which is Golden Air Productions in Hammett, California.
joe rogan
Wow, what would they do to you?
ron miscavige
They'd seize you.
joe rogan
And then what happens?
ron miscavige
And you'd be sequestered from the rest of the group, put into a place where you weren't associating with the rest of the group.
You'd go to lunch at a different time.
You'd have a security guard watching you morning, afternoon, and night.
joe rogan
And you can never leave?
ron miscavige
That's right.
joe rogan
What if you say, I just want to go home?
I want to get out of here.
I want to get an apartment somewhere.
ron miscavige
Can't do it, man.
You just can't do it.
unidentified
You'd be kept.
ron miscavige
It'd fucking physically keep you.
joe rogan
It'd physically, like, hold you down.
ron miscavige
Physically hold you back.
joe rogan
Like, put you in a jail.
ron miscavige
They'd put you in a jail.
And if the church...
Well, I'm sure they're going to have heard this.
But they're going to say, oh, Ron could have left any time he could.
That's bullshit.
That's complete bullshit.
If I would have been caught when I was trying to leave, which I'm going to get into.
I didn't forget we were talking about that.
If I would have been caught...
They would have taken me and Becky, taken the keys to my car.
I would have been sequestered from her, she'd been sequestered from me.
We would have both been security checked.
Sit down with the hands on an e-meter, which I'm sure you know what is.
joe rogan
Yeah, I did one of those once.
I don't really think it works.
ron miscavige
You don't think it works?
Sometimes it does.
joe rogan
Okay.
ron miscavige
But that's not the point.
You'd sit down with that and be interrogated.
And then you'd work maybe four or five hours away at some manual labor.
And when you weren't doing that, you'd be back on the cans again, as they say.
joe rogan
What if you don't work?
What if you're like, fuck you, I don't want to work.
ron miscavige
Yeah, like a difficult bastard, right?
joe rogan
Yeah, like what's ever happened?
Has anybody ever rebelled?
I mean, it's human nature to rebel against authority.
ron miscavige
Yeah, but...
joe rogan
A certain amount of human nature to succumb, but...
ron miscavige
But when you're up at a place where you have three or four hundred people who feel differently, you're not that brave, okay?
joe rogan
But does anybody ever have the gumption or the notion to go, hey, what the fuck are we doing?
Does that ever happen?
ron miscavige
Okay, maybe...
Well, no, what they do is they escape, like I did.
joe rogan
That's it?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
They don't speak up?
ron miscavige
Well, if they speak up, they know what they're in for.
joe rogan
Right.
ron miscavige
They know what they're in for.
Here, there was a guy named Alex.
He wanted to route out.
It took him four fucking years to route out.
joe rogan
Route out?
ron miscavige
That's what they call it.
That's the proper way to leave, where you sit down and you do this routing for him.
It's basically security checking you until you're...
You know, for years.
joe rogan
So once you...
Say if you sign a five-year contract.
ron miscavige
Yeah.
joe rogan
Would you say there's...
Is that possible?
ron miscavige
A five-year contract?
You would be at an outer org.
There, you just walk out of the fucking place and people do that.
joe rogan
An outer org.
But you can't do that at the Sea Org.
ron miscavige
Well, you could in Los Angeles.
But at the international base, you're living on a compound.
You're surrounded with barbed wire, pointing in and pointing out.
You're not going to jump that fence or you'll really screw yourself up.
unidentified
I understand.
joe rogan
But if you say, say if you sign a five-year contract, when the fifth year is up, you get to leave?
ron miscavige
Yeah.
joe rogan
Okay.
ron miscavige
They're going to try to get you to re-enlist, okay?
But if you're at, let's say you're working at one of the organizations in LA, okay?
joe rogan
Okay.
ron miscavige
You can walk out in the street and say, hey, see you later.
What are they going to do?
joe rogan
Because you're in the free world.
ron miscavige
You're in the free world.
You're not in the free world at the international base.
joe rogan
I understand.
ron miscavige
All right?
joe rogan
So you had to plot some sort of an out.
So you had to think about it, and then you had to work with the wife, and you guys had to like hush-hush.
unidentified
Yeah.
ron miscavige
Right, and you asked me what led to that.
Well, there's one major thing that led to it and that was this.
We got a new music director.
I didn't want to have the post anymore.
I was getting old and got this young guy and I would write melodies All day, all week, months, every melody I ever wrote was rejected by him.
In other words, everything I was doing was a piece of shit, but I couldn't quit.
joe rogan
So this new guy was not fun to work with?
ron miscavige
Terrible.
It was terrible.
I was the only one who had gotten a recording contract on my own steam.
Nobody gave it to me.
I didn't have a rich daddy or something.
A contract with Chappell's Publishing for my writing and asked to play on the BBC. Nobody had achieved that in that department.
Now, maybe my skills weren't up to how they write modern music, and I used to beg him, I said, listen, what do you want as an acceptable particle?
I'm a trained musician.
Give me some ideas what you want and I'll start writing that.
Fuck you, learn it just like I did.
This is how I was treated.
joe rogan
Well, this doesn't sound like a fun time.
So you couldn't talk to your son and say, hey, kid, listen, this fucking new guy sucks.
ron miscavige
Wait a minute.
I did that.
I called him.
And I called him.
I wrote to him.
I said, Dave, you've got to get together with me.
joe rogan
Right.
ron miscavige
So we got together.
I said, look, I'm working all day long and nothing I'm doing is being approved.
You've got to get me a different job.
I said, I don't care if you get me a job waxing cars in motor pool, but I want to do something so at the end of the day, you can say, here's what he did.
Okay.
joe rogan
Right, I get it.
ron miscavige
He says, I'll look into it.
He never looked into it.
A couple months later, I said to Becky, look, we're getting the fuck out of here.
Then we started planning.
joe rogan
So what was your plan as far as, like, getting a job?
Because you had been working there for 25 years?
ron miscavige
Well, I'm a good musician.
I'm not just a punk.
I mean, I play quite a bit of jobs in Milwaukee.
joe rogan
So you had skills.
ron miscavige
I have skills.
I'm a good salesman, too.
I also...
Here's how I look.
joe rogan
Okay.
ron miscavige
I'm 76 years old.
I want to spend the rest of my life suffering out every day.
Fuck this!
I'm getting out of here, okay?
joe rogan
Got it.
ron miscavige
And Becky finally says, okay.
And she saw the writing on the wall that it wasn't going to get better.
joe rogan
Right.
ron miscavige
So now, we don't want to leave and leave everything behind because what little possessions we had was what we had, all right?
So we started...
By the way, I mentioned a little earlier that my daughter sent me 75 gifts on my 75th birthday, right?
joe rogan
Yeah.
ron miscavige
Becky came up with the idea.
My mother is going to celebrate.
By the way, my wife's younger than me.
My first wife, I divorced her and married a much younger woman.
So her mother is going to have her 70th birthday.
So we decide to send her mother 70 gifts.
Now, in order to do this, it has to go through the security guards.
So we would send her like a detailing kit for a car.
I mean, her chances of detailing a car as a gift We're nil to none, but they saw that, okay, we're sending her 70 gifts, so it got through them.
We sent her our L. Ron Hubbard library, books that we had, some other things, and we got a lot of stuff out of there that I couldn't fit in the car when we were going.
You see what I'm saying?
joe rogan
Smart.
ron miscavige
And then, after all was said and done and we got everything out of there, we plotted it out, and I did this on Sunday mornings.
On Sunday mornings, You had breakfast at 9 o'clock.
Now, we lived on the southern side of the base.
And we lived in rooms.
You couldn't have a refrigerator.
You couldn't have a coffee maker there.
But across the street, on the north side, I worked in the studio.
There was a refrigerator there.
And I used to keep, like, Italian salami, maybe supersat, some Parmesan cheese, Romano cheese.
So early Sunday morning at 9 o'clock, And I planned this out because there's two gates.
There's one main gate where there's a security guard sitting in a booth and then down the road about 200 yards there's another gate where there's a little camera and they see you coming.
And they got used to me going across to the north side to go to the studio and I'd come back through the main gate and bring the security guards a piece of cheese or salami.
So they thought, hey, Sunday morning he's going to get his goodies.
In other words, I'm feeding the watchdogs.
This is set up.
Right.
So comes the day we're going to leave.
March 25th, 2012. We got up real early and I had a little notebook.
I must have checked it 20 times what I wanted to take, what I wanted to leave behind.
Like the night before, and by the way, my biggest cover on being able to get out of there was the fact that I was 76 years old and I was the father of the chairman of the board.
Nobody would suspect that I was going to leave unauthorizedly.
Alright?
joe rogan
Okay.
ron miscavige
So I'm out with a mesh bag full of shoes, putting it in the car, and one of the security guards come by on his bicycle, an Italian guy, Sal.
Hey, Ronnie, how you doing?
Ah, good, you know.
And he sees me putting this in, but he justifies it in his mind.
Oh, he's putting stuff in his car.
joe rogan
Right.
ron miscavige
Doesn't think twice why I'm doing it.
joe rogan
Of course.
ron miscavige
Another guy's coming by, an old-time Scientologist.
I have a bag of clothes I'm putting in the car.
Ronnie, how's it going?
Good deal, Norm.
Yeah.
All right, you know, put it in the car.
So we got through all that.
joe rogan
Okay.
ron miscavige
So now...
Sunday morning, 9 o'clock, we get in the car, we're loaded up, and we're driving down.
To get to that second gate is about a half mile down the road.
We go there, and I'm going past our mess hall where we would eat, and this is called Masco Canyon Inn.
Or MCI. It's where the crew would eat their meals.
And I see the chase car.
Like on Sunday morning, there's only two security guards on duty.
One is in the main boot, and the other one is in a car so he can rove.
And it's called a chase car.
joe rogan
Okay.
ron miscavige
So the chase car is parked outside of the mess hall.
I knew Sal was in there.
So I go around another 100 yards down the road, get to the gate, and by the way, at this point, my heart is in my throat, alright?
Because when I hit that buzzer, if Juergen would have said, come up to the boot, that was it.
I was fucked.
joe rogan
Okay.
ron miscavige
Hit the buzzer, didn't say anything, the gate opens.
I pulled out of the gate.
It says, Becky, we're turning left.
So I turned left, jammed the throttle, and I knew I had to make it down to these...
There's three roads.
One goes to Route 60. Straight ahead, rather.
The other one goes to Route 10, and if I turn left, I go in the hammock.
I knew by the time I'm going down the road, and he was trying to get me on the next hill, Ron, what the hell are you doing?
Then he'd call Sal.
Sal, get up to the booth pronto.
I know Sal would have to run out, get in the car.
I'd already be at those crossroads or the tree roads.
So I knew when Sal came, he'd either turn right or go straight ahead.
I turned left, went in the hammet.
We hit the boondocks and I was free.
joe rogan
Wow.
So what did you do then?
ron miscavige
We drove to Wisconsin.
joe rogan
Did you have money on you?
ron miscavige
Yeah, I had money on me.
And I paid for everything cash, Joe.
joe rogan
You only get 50 bucks a week.
How long did you save money?
ron miscavige
Well, I was also getting Social Security, so I would salt that away.
Very low amount, by the way.
joe rogan
Right, because you weren't making much money.
ron miscavige
Yeah, it's just bullshit.
joe rogan
Right.
ron miscavige
But anyway, I paid for gas with cash.
We ate for cash.
We stayed in a motel two nights.
I paid cash.
joe rogan
Because you couldn't use your credit cards because they'd be able to track you.
ron miscavige
Exactly.
joe rogan
So, when you finally surfaced, how'd you surface?
ron miscavige
I went to her mother's place.
joe rogan
And then what happens then?
Do they try to get you?
How does that work?
ron miscavige
Well, here's what happens.
No, believe me.
joe rogan
Do they try to bring you back?
You know, look, Ron, it's been a big misunderstanding.
ron miscavige
Oh, here's how it went.
About two weeks later, we're sitting in her mother's house, and it's a split level where...
There's an upstairs, and downstairs in the kitchen, the window was almost level with the ground.
You know how a split level goes?
And I'm looking out the window, we're having breakfast coffee, and I see this girl outside, Marion.
And I thought, fuck, okay, they found me.
So I went through the garage outside, and there's Greg Woolhair.
And he says, ah, Ronnie, I guess you're surprised it took us so long to get here.
Ha, ha, ha.
We thought you were going to go to Lori's place.
We never thought you'd come here.
unidentified
Ha, ha, ha.
ron miscavige
Like nothing happened, you know?
joe rogan
Right.
ron miscavige
So he says, okay.
So I said, Greg, listen, you're just wasting your time.
I'm not going back.
And he says, Ron, I said, hey, I don't want to live that life, man.
It was a terrible fucking life.
I'm not doing it again.
He says, you blew!
That's a term they use if you leave without authorization.
And he pulled out this policy.
It's called Leaving and Leaves.
And what it says...
joe rogan
Leaving and Leaves?
ron miscavige
Leaving and Leaves.
That's the name of it.
And what it says in there substantially is this.
The only reason a person leaves a group is because they have committed harmful acts against the group.
And they want to remove themselves so they don't keep on committing harmful acts against the group.
joe rogan
How convenient.
ron miscavige
No shit.
joe rogan
You can't just leave because you want to leave.
You have to be a bad guy.
ron miscavige
Or the fact that, you know, you're working maybe 12, 14, 16 hours a day, sometimes not going to sleep for three days.
joe rogan
But you got that raise to 50 bucks a week.
ron miscavige
I shouldn't have done it.
joe rogan
It's a nice raise.
So what do you do then when you say you're not going back?
ron miscavige
Well, they try to convince me and it...
Got to the point and says, guys, you're wasting your time.
I am not going back.
And I went in town and I saw him a couple times.
And they says, come on, we'll take you out to a nice place to eat.
We'll take you to a movie.
Like they're going to schmooze me into going back to live that life.
Greg says to me, Ronnie, look, you can go to Flag.
You'll have your own apartment.
You have a kitchen.
We know you like to cook.
And then you can train some of the guys at a cell.
You can play with the band down there.
I said, Greg, you're out of your fucking mind.
You get me down there, it's gonna be the same thing.
No, it won't, Ronnie.
It went on.
joe rogan
So do you think they were just trying to bullshit you?
ron miscavige
Not do I think.
Absolutely.
joe rogan
So if you got there, there'd be no apartment.
They'd punish you, write out a knowledge report.
You can't do this.
ron miscavige
Yeah.
joe rogan
Why do they want you to stay?
Why do they give a fuck if you leave?
ron miscavige
That's what I don't understand.
Because I would be what they consider to be a sensitive particle.
Like these guys that were following me.
unidentified
Sensitive particle?
A particle.
ron miscavige
Well, here's what I mean by that.
Like Dwayne Powell and Daniel Powell.
Well, I was the father of the chairman of the board.
joe rogan
Right.
ron miscavige
That's a blight.
I mean...
joe rogan
Did you ever talk to your son after this?
ron miscavige
I tried to call him once.
I tried to call him after I found out the PI's We're following me.
And after I heard that he got on the phone and said, if he dies, let him die.
Don't intervene.
Don't do anything.
joe rogan
This is what you heard, right?
ron miscavige
Well, you can hear it, too.
joe rogan
There's a recording?
ron miscavige
Tony Ortega.
Yeah, absolutely.
Tony Ortega, underground bunker.
You can hear these interviews, okay?
joe rogan
Okay.
ron miscavige
They're as public as you're going to get.
joe rogan
But you don't hear his actual words.
ron miscavige
No.
joe rogan
Okay.
ron miscavige
But there'd be no reason that this guy would make up that story.
joe rogan
Yeah, but people do make things up, right?
ron miscavige
Well, okay, let's put it this way.
joe rogan
But I'm just playing devil's advocate.
ron miscavige
You can play devil's advocate.
The father was interrogated to begin with.
He told the same story.
The son came in later, didn't have a chance to talk to his father, told the same story.
joe rogan
Okay.
So you haven't had a chance to talk to your son?
ron miscavige
I called and an attorney got on the phone and said, Ron, David won't talk to you.
He doesn't feel he could trust you.
joe rogan
Now, let me ask you this.
ron miscavige
Yeah.
joe rogan
As a father, because I'm a father and you're a father...
The idea of being estranged from your kids in that way, where your kid hates you and your kid doesn't want anybody to save you if you die, do you feel any remorse?
Do you feel like in any way you fucked up?
Do you ever look at your life and go, how did I lose my connection with my son?
ron miscavige
Listen, it's written in policy.
To do what David did.
There's a policy that says, listen, somebody who leaves...
joe rogan
I understand that entirely, but I'm talking about as a human being.
As a human being.
ron miscavige
As a human being, I thought it was terrible because we had a good life together.
joe rogan
But do you feel any responsibility?
Do you feel like there's anything you could have done differently?
ron miscavige
Yeah, not get him in Scientology.
joe rogan
That's it?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
So you feel like once he got into Scientology, it's not your fault?
ron miscavige
He lives his life.
He's the one who got the power to do all these things.
joe rogan
I understand, but you raised him, right?
I mean, whatever connection and bond that you developed with him.
ron miscavige
Yeah, and we had a great life together when he was growing up, too.
joe rogan
That didn't carry forth in some way, you know what I'm saying?
I mean, obviously I'm not in Scientology, and obviously I was not in your situation, but I can't imagine that you must have gone over it And looked at your communications with him and wondered if maybe if you extended yourself more, if you talked more, is there something you could have done that would have prevented any of this?
ron miscavige
Joe, you're dreaming.
I don't mind telling you that, okay?
Please do.
I'm doing it with all respect, okay?
Because you do good interviews.
I've seen you do other interviews, and I'm happy you got me on the show.
No, I couldn't have done anything different except maybe not get him in Scientology.
joe rogan
So you feel like once he was corrupted.
ron miscavige
Listen, there's policy that L. Ron Hubbard wrote, and David...
Loved L. Ron Hubbard and he applies the policy to a T. Does David believe all that stuff?
joe rogan
Does he believe in the- Well, he's got to.
ron miscavige
There's a policy called fair game.
Are you familiar with that?
joe rogan
No.
What's that?
ron miscavige
Fair game.
If somebody goes against the church or talks out against the church and they're declared a suppressive person, he can be lied to, tricked to, and destroyed with no punishment on the person who did it.
joe rogan
But that's not what I mean.
What I mean is the really crazy stuff.
Like the stuff that sounds like science fiction, about like the thetans and dropping them in a volcano and the hydrogen bomb and all that stuff.
Does everybody believe that stuff?
ron miscavige
I think a lot of people do believe it.
joe rogan
Is it discussed?
ron miscavige
No, you don't discuss that.
joe rogan
No one discusses it.
ron miscavige
No one discusses it.
joe rogan
So when you're sitting around the seat org.
ron miscavige
But no, let's get back to what's pertinent to this, and that's the policy, how to operate as a group.
That one, the fair game policy, is written.
And by the way, just to satisfy you, I'll send you soft copies if you can give me an email.
joe rogan
No, no, it's okay.
It's okay.
ron miscavige
Okay, here's another one.
If a person does this, Find or manufacture data about the person.
joe rogan
Okay, so once you've become their enemy, you left them, you're the dad of the chairman of the board, you're a sensitive particle, you've got a real problem.
ron miscavige
That's right.
joe rogan
So you said they took out a bunch of different website addresses?
ron miscavige
Not a bunch, 500. In other words, they got 500 iterations of my name, variations.
So no matter what you put in, and by the way, I have a website, which I did just then, and it's called therealronmiscavage.com.
And you can see my website, but if you put any other thing in there, you're going to get a hate site that tells you things about me that You'd think I was the worst person who ever lived.
joe rogan
Did you write this book?
What was the motivation?
Did you want to make money?
ron miscavige
Absolutely not.
I wanted to help.
joe rogan
But you did make money, right?
You made some money.
ron miscavige
Yeah, but that isn't the reason of writing a book.
joe rogan
That's the only reason I'd write a book.
ron miscavige
Well, not me.
The hundreds of families that are disconnected from their kids.
unidentified
I understand.
ron miscavige
And listen, I knew if I... And by the way, what led me to write it was not even him saying, if he dies, let him die.
I then took a CD with these interrogations on of Daniel Powell and Dwayne Powell.
And my wife and I drove down to Florida to see my daughters.
And I was going to play these for them.
Because now they're disconnected from me.
So I went to my daughter Lori's place.
She's not home.
I went to Denise's place.
Her husband Jerry answered the door.
Answered the door about that far, and he's talking to me.
I said, Jerry, I'd like to speak to Denise.
Well, you can't, because she's not here.
I said, well, look, where is she?
Because I've got to get in communication with her.
He says, no, you have to go to the church and handle it with the church.
I said, Jerry, for Christ's sake.
joe rogan
And Jerry's in as well.
ron miscavige
Yeah, of course he is.
They are.
joe rogan
If your wife's in, you have to be in.
Is that how it works?
ron miscavige
It basically is.
So he said, no, you've got to handle it with them.
And I said, it's a waste of time.
So I'm talking to him for about 20 minutes, and I finally said, Jerry, what's up?
What does this mean?
He's, well, I'll tell you why.
Denise and I are through with you and Becky forever.
That was it.
You know, fuck you.
I'm gonna do a book and I'm gonna expose what you do to people.
Because if I did a blog, who am I? I'm gonna get maybe a couple thousand people to look at this blog, but a book I knew that I could get, and I was on 2020, I was on a Megyn Kelly show, I was on Late Night with Seth Meyers, so we got a lot of exposure, a lot of books, a lot of people are seeing what they did And I'm just hoping enough people do this so they're going to drop that disconnection policy.
Because that's a killer.
joe rogan
So do you think if they drop the disconnection policy, maybe a lot of the other policies would be more tolerable?
ron miscavige
I think if they dropped the disconnection policy and allowed you to talk to your family, listen, if they wanted to do Scientology and I could still talk to them, I wouldn't give a shit.
I'd say, fine, do what you want to do.
joe rogan
But wouldn't it bother you that they can't leave?
ron miscavige
No, they're public.
joe rogan
Because they're not in the Sea Org.
ron miscavige
They're not in the Sea Org.
joe rogan
Okay.
But you can't really leave if you're public.
Like, was Leah Remini in the Sea Org?
ron miscavige
No, she's a public Scientologist.
joe rogan
Right, but when she left, she experienced...
ron miscavige
She took her whole family with her.
joe rogan
Right.
ron miscavige
So they didn't get a chance to, you know, pick them out and say, lookie, you gotta disconnect from Leah.
joe rogan
That is like one of the things that is like a hallmark operation of problematic organizations, right?
They separate you from your family.
ron miscavige
I think it's terrible.
I think it's the worst thing you can do to a person.
Look, and I'm not 45 fucking years anymore, okay?
I'm 81 years old in January.
I would like to see my family.
I would like to have some time.
We've got pictures of my great-grandchildren on their Facebooks.
I've never met these kids.
I don't even know what their names are.
Son of a bitch.
joe rogan
And you feel like your kids are going to be in there forever?
ron miscavige
Yeah.
joe rogan
And they've never expressed any dissatisfaction?
ron miscavige
Well, when I was in the Sea Org, I was not around them.
We would only communicate through letters or we'd send each other gifts on birthdays or Christmas or something.
I couldn't get leaves to see them.
At one point, my daughter Lori went to see David and said, listen, if Dad can't come to see us, we would like to go to see him.
So he exceeded.
Just imagine, she had to ask him if it's okay to come and see me.
And they came to Celebrity Center and we spent about four days together and just having a good time, me cooking, just enjoying their company.
It just, the whole scene is really bad.
It's just not okay.
And it's the way it's set up.
It's built into the fucking DNA as to how to control people.
And you have a threat, you have extortion, you have leverage, and that's what that is.
That is why I wrote the book.
joe rogan
When you look back on your life, joining this in the 1970s, 1970s?
1970. When you look back on your life and you think about that move, that initial move of joining, what goes on in your head?
ron miscavige
I don't think about it because there's nothing I can do about it, but I can tell you this, I wouldn't have done it.
In other words, if I knew then what I knew now, I'd say, hey, you know, fuck you, man, I'm not doing this.
What do you think, I'm nuts?
joe rogan
Do new people join all the time?
ron miscavige
I can't imagine there's very many new people joining right now.
You know, unless they're a shepherd or somebody like that or somebody who's never looked at the internet, you can't possibly, and this is what people do, To check something out, they'll Google it.
That's very common.
And you start looking at anything, oh, do I want to get involved in this, you know?
By the way, in the book, I give references to books that were written in the late 1800s, early 1900s.
The New Thought Movement.
And there's many, many, many datums about life that if you were a Scientologist and you see these, you say, wait a minute, L. Ron Hubbard used to say this, all right?
Talking about the reactive mind.
Remember that from Dianetics?
William Atkinson.
And the other guys, they talk about a subconscious mind.
It records 24 hours a day.
They're talking about the same thing he was.
joe rogan
Well, Lawrence Wright talked about that in Going Clear.
He said that it seems like at least some of what was going on was L. Ron Hubbard trying to self-medicate.
That he was writing things to try to cure his own ills.
ron miscavige
Probably, yeah.
But these people, I mean, you can go on the Internet and get these books for 99 cents because it's past 75 years.
You can't copyright them.
unidentified
Right.
ron miscavige
And, of course, you wouldn't know, if you weren't a Scientologist, you wouldn't know which parts that he took out of that.
But I've run across many, many things in the books that he just lifted, almost copied and pasted it and put it into what he called Scientology.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Well, I mean, if he's trying to get a great collection of work on how to work the mind, how the mind works.
ron miscavige
And it worked then, so he knew it would work now.
joe rogan
And so there is something to some of the principles.
That's what you've always said.
ron miscavige
Not a question about it, Joe.
joe rogan
And you think to this day that if you could remove a lot of it...
ron miscavige
If you could filter it down to those things that...
Are provably workable.
joe rogan
Do you think it's saveable?
Let's say this.
What if your son listens to this podcast and he's like, what the fuck?
This world, who knows?
This life is not going to last forever.
What am I doing?
I can't even talk to my dad.
Maybe I've lost my way.
Maybe I get together with him and we try to figure this out.
And he says, what can we do to make this better?
I know.
ron miscavige
I'm talking crazy.
joe rogan
I know I'm talking crazy.
unidentified
That's okay.
ron miscavige
What the hell, you know?
joe rogan
Let's just, as an exercise, what would you do?
ron miscavige
If he said, let's talk it out, I'd talk to him.
I'll talk to anybody, anytime, about anything.
joe rogan
If he said, listen, no new people are joining Scientology.
We've got a real problem.
What do you think is the beneficial aspects of it that we should keep?
And what should we get rid of?
ron miscavige
And I think he would come up with the things that I come up with also.
joe rogan
And so you have wrote about those in this book?
ron miscavige
I tell about four points you could do and you could salvage it.
But the chances of that happening are just so remote.
I wouldn't bet two cents on it.
joe rogan
Well, we're not even trying to bet on it.
But do you think that that is just what happens with people?
They get into these positions?
You create an ideology or you...
ron miscavige
Well, no, it's the power.
It's the acquisition of power.
And then in order to keep that power, because I think power is almost like a drug.
That's almost like crack cocaine.
You get hooked on it.
You don't want to let go of it.
joe rogan
Right.
ron miscavige
And now you have things going to hell around you.
You're going to do anything you can perceive to be beneficial to keep it going and start implementing that.
And like buying new buildings and just making them into these palaces for people to come and do services.
And then you drive by them and there's nobody in them.
Just nobody in them.
joe rogan
Where are they getting all the money to buy these buildings?
ron miscavige
People donate it.
joe rogan
But there's only 20,000 people, right?
ron miscavige
Yeah, but you have whales, man.
There are people.
Whales.
A whale is.
joe rogan
That's what you guys call them?
ron miscavige
Well, I'm calling them a whale.
And as a matter of fact...
joe rogan
That's like a gambling term.
ron miscavige
It is.
It's somebody who goes to Las Vegas and they got a lot of dough.
joe rogan
And they blow it all.
They get crazy.
Come on, Seven.
unidentified
Right?
joe rogan
That's a whale.
ron miscavige
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, you have people in there, and I feel no need to mention their names.
I'll tell you off the air, but I don't want to throw them...
joe rogan
But there's a lot of very wealthy people, and they donate a ton of cash.
ron miscavige
One guy had a medical procedure.
He sold for something like $2.4 billion.
Who knows, he probably gave about 50 or 60 million dollars to the church.
And the church...
joe rogan
What does he get for that?
Do they take him around one of those things, like one of those old school king things?
ron miscavige
No.
joe rogan
What are those things called?
They carry you around in those carts?
ron miscavige
I don't know.
joe rogan
Get a bunch of dudes, they hold the poles.
ron miscavige
Yeah, do you remember...
joe rogan
That'd be dope.
ron miscavige
History of the World Part One, Madeline Kahn was on it.
joe rogan
Yeah, one of those things called?
They carry you around.
ron miscavige
I don't know, but I'll check it out and I'll send you an email.
joe rogan
Jamie will look it up.
ron miscavige
Look, no, they get a huge trophy.
joe rogan
Okay.
Oh, you get a trophy for $50 million?
ron miscavige
Oh, I mean like six feet tall and you go on the stage and get your picture taken with David and he congratulates you.
joe rogan
What about those like big dinner plate gold medals that, is it called a litter?
Wow, like how weird.
A litter is a class of wheel-less vehicles, a type of human-powered transport.
A simple litter, often called a king carrier, consists of a sling attached along to lengths of poles or stretched inside a frame.
Interesting.
ron miscavige
So it's called a litter.
joe rogan
I would have never guessed.
ron miscavige
No, I wouldn't have either.
joe rogan
How weird.
What does Tom Cruise have to get to get one of those giant-ass gold medals that's bigger than the Olympics?
ron miscavige
Oh, the Medal of Valor.
joe rogan
Oh, Valor.
ron miscavige
Well, that's a different situation.
Let me tell you something.
joe rogan
Tell me something.
ron miscavige
When you're a celebrity of his stature, there's no rules.
joe rogan
No rules?
No, you're catered to- What about a celebrity of my stature, like a minor league celebrity?
What kind of sweet perks could I get?
ron miscavige
Yeah, you'd be pampered.
joe rogan
Ooh.
ron miscavige
You'd be pampered, yeah.
joe rogan
Like good seats at a restaurant or something like that?
ron miscavige
Well, good seats at an event.
joe rogan
Look at that juicy gold medal.
That's beautiful.
ron miscavige
Yeah.
joe rogan
I might join just to get a nice medal.
ron miscavige
Man, that's it.
joe rogan
Stand in front of that big globe.
Hmm.
ron miscavige
And I tell you, that set is put together.
unidentified
I bet.
ron miscavige
That takes a lot of work.
joe rogan
I bet.
Look at that handsome bastard.
Perfect cheeks.
Good nose structure.
The guy's 55 years old.
He looks great.
How are they keeping him alive?
He looks great.
He's one of those guys that doesn't look like he's aging.
ron miscavige
I don't know.
He probably works out.
I'm sure he works out.
He's got to work out.
joe rogan
He's a great actor, right?
Admit to that, right?
ron miscavige
Yeah, he is.
joe rogan
The Edge of Tomorrow.
Did you ever see that?
Science fiction movie?
ron miscavige
No one ever did.
joe rogan
That's a fucking great movie.
That's what it's called, right?
The Edge of Tomorrow?
The one where he keeps coming back to life again?
unidentified
Yeah, Live, Die, Repeat.
joe rogan
That's a fucking great movie.
I think he's so wacky that a lot of his movies, they don't get the credit they deserve.
ron miscavige
Yeah.
joe rogan
You know what I mean?
Because he's so wacky, people are like, oh, this motherfucker.
ron miscavige
Well, no, he's a draw, and people enjoy watching him act.
There's no two ways about it.
joe rogan
That's not what I'm saying.
What I'm saying is I think that people don't respect the movie as much, like people that are real connoisseurs of film.
That's a fantastic science fiction movie.
ron miscavige
And what's it called?
joe rogan
The Edge of Tomorrow.
When did it come out?
Three years ago, maybe four?
Something like that?
ron miscavige
Wow.
joe rogan
It's a great movie, man.
But I feel like if someone with no controversy attached to them was the star of that movie, it would have been critically acclaimed.
It's an amazing film.
It doesn't have any holes in it.
It's really good.
ron miscavige
Well, I tell you, there's controversy attached to him, isn't there?
joe rogan
There's a little bit.
ron miscavige
Yeah.
joe rogan
If you said there wasn't, you'd be glib.
Don't be glib.
ron miscavige
Well, I know he works out.
He got a house in...
Beverly Hills, I put the gym in.
I got the equipment for the gym in that house.
joe rogan
Well, he's a winner.
I mean, he's just a winner.
And he attributes a lot of those winning attitudes to Scientology.
ron miscavige
Yeah.
joe rogan
I mean, a lot of his focus and the way he looks at things.
That's what I always think of, or used to think of, before I started researching it and finding all the wacky stuff.
But before I knew what Scientology was, I thought of it as being like, I thought of Dianetics, right?
I thought Dianetics was sort of like Anthony Robbins, unlimited power.
Like, oh, this is like a guideline for getting your shit together.
And that's what I've always wanted to do my whole life.
I've always felt like, ah, I wish I was more disciplined.
I wish I got my shit together more.
Maybe I need to read more books.
And so I'd read Anthony Robbins and then I read Dianetics.
I thought they were kind of the same thing.
Back in the day.
ron miscavige
Well, Anthony Robbins did steal some things from Scientology.
There's no two ways about it.
No.
And there's also another thing called Est.
joe rogan
Yes, I've heard of that.
ron miscavige
That used some of the Scientology.
joe rogan
I know a guy who's in that right now.
Is that a cult, too?
ron miscavige
It is, but I mean...
joe rogan
They're a little bit more...
ron miscavige
Look, I don't know too much about it, but I know that there are some people who've done it who felt they had a lot of good wins out of it, okay?
joe rogan
Well, that's the thing, right?
When you look at a guy like Tom Cruise, it's kind of undeniable that that guy is very successful, very driven, motivated, right?
ron miscavige
Yeah, but don't forget, it wasn't just Scientology that did it for him.
joe rogan
He's got talent.
ron miscavige
He is a talented individual.
I remember the first one he did about, he was a kid at the Valley Forge Military Academy, I forget what it's called now.
joe rogan
Yeah, Taps.
ron miscavige
Taps, yeah.
And when I saw that at that, man, I like this guy.
joe rogan
He's in that Ponyboy movie too, right?
What the fuck was that called?
Outsiders.
Yeah, he's in that too.
He's a great actor.
ron miscavige
Yeah, and he did one with Paul Newman where he was a pool shark.
Remember that?
joe rogan
Color of Money.
One of my favorite movies.
ron miscavige
No, I mean, there's no toys about it.
And individually, I mean, I met him many times.
He's a nice guy.
joe rogan
So, does he have any knowledge of all this stuff when he sees all this disconnection?
And if he's a nice guy, why doesn't he step in and go, Hey, Dave, we're going to fucking cut this shit.
ron miscavige
Listen, I can't imagine that he doesn't know about it.
I can't imagine that.
joe rogan
And so he just, like a guy like you, separated from your family, it's beyond his control.
It's with LRH wants.
ron miscavige
He would never do anything to go against Dave.
joe rogan
Why is that?
ron miscavige
He considers David to be the top spiritual being on this planet.
joe rogan
Look at this, saluting each other.
ron miscavige
Yep.
joe rogan
Jesus.
ron miscavige
That's at the event.
joe rogan
Are they in the military?
ron miscavige
Pardon me?
joe rogan
Are they in the military?
ron miscavige
Are they?
joe rogan
Yeah.
ron miscavige
No, this is...
joe rogan
So why are they saluting each other?
I'm just curious.
What the fuck's going on there?
Jamie, when I see you in the morning, we're saluting from now on.
We're going to salute each other.
Fuck it.
If he could do it.
ron miscavige
Yeah.
joe rogan
How does that work?
Could anybody salute anybody or is that rude?
Is it like cultural appropriation?
It's like a person walking around with a Pocahontas outfit on.
Can people get mad at you?
ron miscavige
No, anybody can salute another person.
You might see somebody going off from the plane and say, hey, have a good trip.
joe rogan
Yeah, but you would do it like almost in tongue-in-cheek, a jest.
Hey, you fucking animal, you, I love you.
ron miscavige
Okay, so the sea organization is a military-type organization, and you would salute people in the military.
joe rogan
But it's just non-ironic saluting outside of the military just seems awful odd.
ron miscavige
Yeah.
joe rogan
And, you know...
ron miscavige
Well, there's a lot of things odd about it, but for whatever reason, it's kept on going.
Yeah.
joe rogan
Well, I think that's one of the reasons why.
That man right there, Tom Cruise.
ron miscavige
Oh, yeah.
joe rogan
People look at him and go, this guy's in it.
He's a winner.
ron miscavige
Well, now, here's what L. Ron Hubbard said, that we should get...
Celebrities in.
Because they are opinion leaders.
And what do you do with an opinion leader?
You want to be like that person.
And if an opinion leader is a Scientologist, I'm going to try this out.
I'm going to try out Scientology.
joe rogan
What's John Travolta like?
ron miscavige
Very nice guy.
joe rogan
Seems like a nice guy.
ron miscavige
I met him once.
He's literally a nice guy.
joe rogan
So there's something those guys are getting out of it.
ron miscavige
Yeah, John Travolta and Kirstie Alley and people like that, they get auditing and they get pampered and they don't have to follow money rules.
joe rogan
So for them, it's almost like they're a part of a gang or something.
ron miscavige
You're in a click.
You're in a click.
joe rogan
Everybody kisses your ass.
It's nice.
ron miscavige
Nobody wants to piss you off.
If you get pissed off like Leah.
Well, with Leah, she saw shit go on.
And Shelly was not there with David when he was at Tom Cruise's wedding.
And she said to Tommy Davis, where's Shelly?
And Tommy Davis says, listen, you don't have the fucking rank to ask that question.
joe rogan
Ooh, you gotta get a higher rank?
Well, that was a figure of speech.
ron miscavige
No, that was a figure of speech.
If he would have said, look it, Shelly's off doing a correction program, that's why she's not here.
Leah might still be in Scientology.
joe rogan
Oh, so a correction program is Shelley fucked up?
ron miscavige
That's right.
And everybody in Scientology knows sometimes Sea Org member isn't seeing.
If you say, well, doing a correction program, they'd go, oh, okay.
And that would be it.
joe rogan
So the mistake was they disrespected Leah.
She's very fiery.
ron miscavige
Not a little bit.
Really fiery.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ron miscavige
She's from Brooklyn.
joe rogan
She's very fiery.
ron miscavige
She's a great person, too, I tell you.
She's...
You know how I met Leah?
joe rogan
How'd you meet her?
ron miscavige
I was in Celebrity Center in what's called the President's Office, and I was there for some event many years ago.
joe rogan
Is there an election?
ron miscavige
No.
joe rogan
So how does someone get to be president?
ron miscavige
No, it's just you're given the post of the president of that organization.
joe rogan
Oh, okay.
ron miscavige
Yeah, it's just granted.
Now, Leah comes walking out of this room, and she said, I got the part.
I said, what do you mean you got the part?
She said, I got the part.
I says, who are you?
She says, my name is Leah.
I got the part in this new show called The King of Queens.
Hey, congratulations.
You gave her a hug.
That's how I met her.
The day she got the part.
And we've been good buddies ever since.
joe rogan
I met her real close to that time as well.
ron miscavige
Yeah?
joe rogan
I'm good buddies with Kevin James.
ron miscavige
Oh.
joe rogan
And Kevin James was, you know, obviously the lead of the King and Queens, and he's a stand-up comic.
We came up together.
And, you know, I'd always, I was like, she's, what is she, a Scientologist or something?
I was like, yeah, she's all focused.
She does all the Scientology shit.
He goes, ah, get the fuck out of here.
ron miscavige
Yeah, but he's a funny man.
joe rogan
He's a very funny guy.
ron miscavige
Very funny guy.
unidentified
He's hilarious.
joe rogan
Yeah.
And he just was like, oh, I don't know what the fuck's going on.
And that was it.
Like, he didn't talk about it.
She didn't talk about it.
ron miscavige
I know.
And the show went on no matter what.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ron miscavige
They're both professionals.
joe rogan
Oh, great show.
ron miscavige
I enjoy it and I've watched very little TV, but that was a show and I could pick it up anytime and watch it.
Another thing I can watch is the Eagles beating the Giants from Meltdown at the Meadowlands.
unidentified
I don't know.
ron miscavige
You ever see that?
joe rogan
No.
ron miscavige
Well, the Eagles are down three touchdowns.
They come back and win in the last 13 seconds.
I'm originally from Pennsylvania.
joe rogan
Okay, you're reminiscing now?
Is that what's going on here?
ron miscavige
Yeah.
A little change of pace, you know, to break the tension here, you know.
joe rogan
There's no tension.
ron miscavige
I know that.
joe rogan
So listen, Ron, good luck with this book.
It's called Ruthless.
People can get it everywhere.
You know, I'm an eternal optimist, and I would hope that one day you'd be able to speak to your kids, and one day you'd be able to speak to your son, and everybody could work this out.
ron miscavige
I would hope for the same thing, and I guess...
I'm starting to lose hope on that matter because the years are going by now.
I've been out for like five years and I don't know what's going to change it other than maybe enough people speaking out and them dropping that disconnection policy.
joe rogan
Talk to Tom Cruise.
Tom Cruise, holler at me.
Let's do a podcast, buddy.
Come on in here.
Let's straighten this whole bullshit out.
Thank you, Ron.
Appreciate it, buddy.
ron miscavige
Okay.
Thank you.
Hey, thanks a lot for having me on.
I appreciate it.
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